Chapter 79: Chapter 79: People who like to read books are weird and we would be wise to avoid them.

“STOP! DON’T LOOK AT ME!” howls Seltsam, throwing down rows of books from the shelves and then crawling underneath them.

 

Hineni stands there, very much looking at her legs, flailing out of the side of the small mountain of tomes.

 

“- Nooo~!” screams the woman.

 

“Hot damn, are you murdering her over here or something?” asks Sockel, looking around the corner.

 

Hineni, who is just standing there and certainly not murdering her, shrugs. “No.”

 

She frowns. “Oh. Huh. Lame,” replies Sockel, her ears drooping.

 

“Murder?” asks Rhine from above, looking at Sockel. “I thought you two were friends, Sockel?” he asks. “Why would we murder Seltsam?”

 

She looks up, pointing at him. “Being afraid to murder your friends is what will get you killed one day, twerp. Remember that,” she instructs. “Never be afraid to murder the people closest to you. They're your biggest weakness.”

 

“Will do!” replies Rhine, giving her an enthusiastic thumbs-up. Hineni notes that this is a mess that he’ll have to sort out some other time. “Wait. Does that include us too, Sockel?” he asks.

 

Sockel stares at Rhine for a moment, before turning away and shaking her head. “Good kid,” mutters the elf, ignoring his question and looking back at the mess of a jumble that is stuck between them all, beneath a giant pile of books. “The game’s over, Selty,” she says, walking towards the trembling pile of books. “We know that Eilig and Kleidet are in here. Where are they?!”

 

“P-p-please don’t look at me!” cries Seltsam, her voice cracking.

 

“Don’t make me come in there and get you,” warns Sockel, audibly cracking her neck. “As a friend, I’ll give you five seconds to crawl out on your own.”

 

“N- no!” says Seltsam. “You can’t! Really! Don’t come in here!” she says. The books shuffle around, as something crawls beneath them. “I’m s-sorry!”

 

“’Sorry’ never cuts it, Selty,” says Sockel. “Everyone says they’re sorry before they get the knife,” she notes, walking towards the books. “But do they ever really mean it?” Sockel squats down on her heels, her arms resting on her knees. “I don’t think so, personally.”

 

“It was an accident! I swear! DON’T LOOK!” cries a voice from beneath the books.

 

Sockel reaches down, grabbing one.

 

“Sockel,” says Hineni. She looks his way, as he shakes his head ‘no’. She drops the book back onto the pile. “Seltsam. Where are they?” he asks.

 

“…They’re… they’re upstairs,” says Seltsam. “Behind the ‘s’-section.”

 

Hineni looks up towards Rhine who nods and runs to the shelf.

 

“You killed them, Selty?” asks Sockel. “That’s fucked,” she says, whistling. “I didn’t know you were the type.” She sighs, shaking her head. “Eilig was starting to grow on me too,” she says, before tsking. “Shame.”

 

“Uh, guys?” calls a voice from above. Something heavy scratches against the floors as it's pushed over the ground. “I think I uh, I think I found them,” says Rhine.

 

Hineni and Sockel look up towards the rafters, where next to Rhine, stands a very detailed stone statue of a dark-elf, holding a fairy. Hineni feels his heart skip a beat as he sees Eilig and he catches himself twitching his hand, his fingers getting ready to click.

 

“…The hell?” mutters Sockel.

 

Obscura hoots, fluttering down onto the statues as a small owl. “Intriguing! Mysterious, magical librarian!” says the god, twisting her head around.

 

“It was an accident!” cries Seltsam’s voice from beneath the shaking books. “I- I was just talking to Eilig and Kleidet came in from the kitchen to ask for a book,” explains the librarian. “She- she saw me and got petrified!” she exclaims. “I’m sorry!”

 

“Why the…” Sockel narrows her eyes. “- Selty. You can’t be that ugly. Get out of there.”

 

“No!” shouts Seltsam.

 

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“Wait,” says Rhine. “Doesn’t Eilig hang out with you all the time?”

 

“Eilig has magical blood, she isn’t affected by looking at me. But Kleidet is and she was touching Eilig!”

 

Hineni sighs, rubbing his forehead as he pieces everything together.

 

“The rules of monsters are peculiar, yes?” asks Obscura. “Strange fates have brought strange people to strange Obscura.”

 

“I’M NOT STRANGE!” yells Seltsam, clearly having been struck by that remark.

 

Rhine looks over the railing. “Wait. Seltsam. Are you a gorgon?” he asks.

 

“N- no!” she shouts. “I’m a librarian and a person!”

 

Rhine nods, pointing at the stack of books. “She’s a gorgon, guys.”

 

“I’m not!”

 

Hineni lifts an eyebrow. “A gorgon?”

 

Sockel tsks again, getting back up and leaning against a shelf. “They’re a monster from the north-east,” she says. “Pretty rare these days.” She sighs. “They turn people to stone if you look at them.”

 

“S-s-top calling me a m-monster!” protests Seltsam, her voice cracking apart until she starts loudly crying beneath the pile of books. “I'm- I'm a person!"

 

Hineni lifts a hand. “Let’s all take a moment to breathe,” he instructs, waiting for the room to quiet. Apart from the work-related crying, it mostly is. “Seltsam. I don’t give a frog’s ass what you are,” he says. Something hoots. “You do good work. But why didn’t you tell us about Kleidet and Eilig? Can they be cured?” he asks.

 

It’s quiet for a time as Seltsam tries to compose herself.

 

“- I’ve… I’ve been reading stuff for days now and trying to feed them in the meantime,” she says. “I don’t know. But I can’t find anything about it,” explains Seltsam. “I- I wanted to fix it before you found out,” she says. “It’s really nice here and- and-”

 

She devolves into crying again. Which, while understandable, isn’t really productive workplace behavior.

 

Something hoots from above. Obscura is standing on Kleidet’s petrified head, holding out a wing. “Who~” hoots the owl-god. “Unwise book-tender,” she says. “She seeks the wisdom of paper, made of trees,” says Obscura. “Yet sage Obscura lives on trees, does that not make her the wisest of all?” she asks, hooting proudly and puffing out her chest.

 

Rhine looks towards the ceiling, rubbing the back of his lip as he tries to follow her words. “Wait, does that even make any sen -”

 

“SILENCE!” hoots the owl-god, flapping her wings at him from above. “Tarnished river-boy!”

 

“’Tarnished’?” asks Rhine, lifting an eyebrow.

 

“His pure waters have been stained with ash!” remarks Obscura. “He is lost to the mind-maze of the Hineni-man for all of his forever-days!”

 

Rhine blinks, smiling. He leans over the edge. “Did you hear that?!” he asks excitedly. “She says I’m like you!” he exclaims, pointing at Obscura, who is reaching down and trying to snip at his pointing finger with her beak in annoyance. But she doesn’t quite manage to reach him by the time he lowers his arm again.

 

Hineni nods, proud of this at least. But it doesn’t help the situation.

 

“BEHOLD!” says Obscura, somewhat more annoyed than before, taking a prideful pose atop the statue once more. “The power of true divinity!”

 

A magical aura forms around her, the air quivering as if it were suspending a great heat within itself. It runs over the statues of Kleidet and Eilig, down to the floor, as she flaps her wings.

 

— Rhine sneezes, breathing in a mouthful of owl-dust.

 

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